The 50 Best Album Opening Lines

I haven’t written much about music because I haven’t been listening to much but the same old stuff I’ve listened to for years. Case in point, today I was listening to Nirvana’s In Utero (1993; can you believe it’s been twenty years?!). The satisfying dissonance of the opening chord of “Serve the Servants” kicked in, and I thought a thought I always think when I put it on: what a brilliant opening line. “Teenage angst has paid off well. Now I’m bored and old.” It serves as a sort of idiomatic update, a response almost, to the equally powerful opening line to an album almost thirty years before it: the UK edition of The Rolling Stones’ Aftermath (1966), which opens with “Mother’s Little Helper” and its unforgettable opener: “What a drag it is getting old.”1

Of course Cobain (25 at the time) was neither then nor ever old, and Jagger (21 at the time) was not singing from his own perspective, but rather from the point of view of disillusioned diazepam-popping mothers. And yet the songs are kindred in spirit. Consider: “The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore” (“Mother’s Little Helper”) and “That legendary divorce is such a bore” (“Serve the Servants”).

Anyway, these two songs got me thinking about what makes a good opening for an album. Not that many people think in terms of albums these days, but I’ve decided I think that the Nirvana opening to In Utero is effective for three reasons: it’s a great song on a great album, it opens the album with words that are forceful in their own right, and it perfectly sums up the album to follow.

There are not as many of these at you might at first think. There are loads of songs with great openings which aren’t at the start of albums: “They’re selling postcards of the hanging” or “It’s a godawful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair”. Likewise there are lots of great albums which have a lackluster opening song—David Bowie’s Low (1977), for example, which starts with “Speed of Life”. Or there are downright deceptive openings, like The Talking Heads’ Fear of Music (1979), whose “I Zimbra” opening has a raw energy that contrasts with the cerebral beauty of what is to follow. Neil Young’s On the Beach likewise starts on a strangely upbeat note with “Walk On”, before lowering it a notch in “See the Sky about to Rain”, and then dropping the absolute bombshell of “Revolution Blues” in the third track. There are even great albums with great opening songs which lack that opening line—Tom Waits’ Bone Machine (1992) for example, opens with the deeply memorable “Earth Died Screaming”, but this song begins with the mumbled “Rudy’s on the midway and Jacob’s in the hole.”

Clearly some musicians consider this in different ways, as The Beatles, PJ Harvey, Elliott Smith, and Elvis Costello have consistently brilliant openings (memorable2, brutal, stark, and clever, respectively). And occasionally albums are commenced in a quite self-conscious way:

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.

— N.W.A, “Straight Outta Compton”, Straight Outta Compton (1988)

Let me take you on a trip, around the world and back, and you don’t have to move you just sit still.

— Depeche Mode, “World in My Eyes”, Violator (1990)

How’s this for opening lines? We’d like to blow your minds.

— !!!, “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough get Karazzee”,Louden Up Now (2004)

Some evocative openers

Here’s a thirty-odd of my favourite openers in terms of how well they condense the album into a concentrated burst, evoke the feelings on the album, or enapsulate its tenor. They’re not all brilliant lyrics in their own right, but if you know the album it’s difficult not to experience the rush of that album when these lines drop. In my opinion, they are all great songs and all great albums. In an order that probably only makes sense to me:

I’m lying in my bed, the blanket is warm, this body will never be safe from harm. Still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal, touch my skin to keep me whole.

— Jeff Buckley, “Mojo Pin”, Grace (1994)

Early one morning the sun was shining, I was laying in bed.

— Bob Dylan, “Tangled Up in Blue”, Blood on the Tracks (1975)

These shattering openings are great because they set the tone for the album but they’re also like a condensed version of the album, so when the line drops you get a stiff tincture of what is to come.

My favourites

Finally, the best of the best, those that combine lyrical genius with the distilled emotion of the album, and get stuck in your head for days. I’m not going to number them but they are loosely in increasing order of how good they are:

Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits. Raised on a diet of broken biscuits.

— Pulp, “Mis-Shapes”, Different Class (1995)

Silhouettes and shadows watch the revolution. No more free steps to heaven. It’s no game.

— David Bowie, “It’s No Game, Part 1”, Scary Monsters (1980)

Cut this picture into you and me. Burn it backwards, kill this history.

— Elliott Smith, “Sweet Adeline”, opening to XO (1998)

I am on a lonely road and I am travelling, travelling, travelling, travelling.

— Joni Mitchell, “All I Want”, Blue (1971)

Dirty people take what’s mine. I can leave them all behind. They can never cross that line, when I get to the border.

— Richard & Linda Thompson, “When I Get to the Border”,I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (1974)

London calling to the far away towns, now war is declared, and battle come down.

— The Clash, “London Calling”, London Calling (1979)

The screen door slams; Mary’s dress waves. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.

— Bruce Springsteen, “Thunder Road”, Born to Run (1975)

If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream…

— Van Morrison, “Astral Weeks”, Astral Weeks (1967)

Farewell to this land’s cheerless marshes; hemmed in like a boar between arches.

I’m sure I missed lots. I also know that sometimes there are a few spoken or sung words before these lines; I’ve gone with what I think of when I imagine the start of the album, wrong though I may be. It’s pretty rock-centric and like I said I haven’t listened to that much new music, so please comment and tell me your favourites! I promise to listen to the whole album.

The US release of Aftermath has a different but equally familiar and assertive opening: “I see a red door and I want it painted black.” [↩]

“Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC”, “Well she was just seventeen”, “Oh yeah I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand”, and “Asked a girl what she wanted to be” are all impressively memorable. [↩]

Yes, there’s the “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty” sample at the beginning, which I also love, but this is the first non-sampled bit. [↩]

4 comments

Hmmmm… Good post. The opening line of “Shine on you Crazy Diamond” came to mind, but it’s funny, the words don’t come until nearly 9 minutes into the song — that’s like the equivalent of 3 conventional pop songs! Other Pink Floyd albums come to mind too, “If you didn’t care what happened to me, and I didn’t care for you, we would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain occasionally glancing up through the rain.” And of course, the opening lyric for DSotM “Breathe, breathe in the air.” Here’s one off the beaten path that comes to mind, the opening line: “Be gone you ever piercing Power Play machine cutting our musical solidarity.”

I like the next line too: “For those who would break the windows of our true reflections and perceptions of the world.” — Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe , “Themes”, self titled (1989)

The group is actually the classic Yes lineup, but due to legal reasons, they were unable to call themselves Yes on this album.

Another personal favorite: “When the going gets tough and the stomach acids flow, the cold wind of conformity is nipping at your nose; when some trendy new atrocity has brought you to your knees, come with us we’ll sail the Seas of Cheese.” — Primus, “Sailing the Seas of Cheese”, Sailing the Seas of Cheese (1991)